PROJECT MAYHEM

“Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process, and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scie...

I'm forever reading books from other writers about the craft of writing. Writing is solitary in many ways. I'm always looking for  c...

Fast-paced. Gripping. A page turner. “I couldn’t put it down.” Why do some books get these comments, while others are called slow or fla...

I have to confess, I put little stock in personality tests. They seem too generic, like magazine horoscopes that, with a little finag...

"Sea captain in storm," illustration  by N.C. Wyeth  from The Rakish Brigantine We all know that feeling. The early morning ...

I’m teaching a picture book writing class at the Cotuit Center for the Arts , and it’s been fascinating exploring the connections between ...

Photo courtesy: Moving Picture World Wikimedia Commons It was just before Christmas two years ago and I was on the phone with my agen...

I was reading HARRIET THE SPY the other day and was absolutely smitten with Harriet's writer's game from the beginning of the boo...

Story beginnings have been tricky for me. When I started editing with my agent, that was one of the first and hardest things I had to wo...

First person point of view has found a home in middle-grade novels, and it’s easy to understand why. Though there are narrative limitations...